By Samuel Clench

Copyright news

At issue here is an album Epstein’s partner and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, compiled for him in 2003, which features dozens of simpering messages from his friends.

The album has been in the possession of Epstein’s estate since he died in 2019. The estate recently handed it over to America’s Congress. So we can now see the message that allegedly came from Mr Trump. The President claims he didn’t write it.

The note is exactly as previously described by The Wall Street Journal, which reported on its existence a couple of months ago, prompting Mr Trump to accuse it of propagating fake news and sue it for defamation.

It involves a mock conversation between Mr Trump and Epstein, which goes as follows.

Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.

The message is printed within the outline of a woman’s body, with Mr Trump’s supposed signature at the bottom.

The President’s defenders have argued it’s not his signature, citing the one he has been using for the last decade or so, which is indeed different.

However, other argue it does match Mr Trump’s well-documented signature from the time period in question.

Two events today have shed new light on the situation. We’ll start with Mr Trump’s remarks to reporters on his way to dinner in Washington D.C., a few blocks from the White House.

“Mr President, did you sign the Jeffrey Epstein birthday letter?” one reporter asked.

“It’s not my signature. And it’s not the way I speak. And anybody that’s covered me for a long time, no, that’s not my language. It’s nonsense,” Mr Trump said.

“And frankly, you’re wasting your time. All you do is trying to get off the great successes of D.C. and about 200 other things we’ve done that were so successful. And this is a great, great success. And we have so many.

“I don’t think any president, in their first eight months, has had anywhere near the success that we’ve had.”

Mr Trump ended the brief press conference when someone asked him whether he’d be willing to meet with Epstein’s victims.

“Nobody’s suggested that,” said Mr Trump.

“I haven’t even thought about that. Thank you all very much.”

That contradicts the account of Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, usually an enthusiastic supporter of the President, who last week said she had urged Mr Trump to host Epstein survivors in the Oval Office, but hadn’t received any response.

That came as about a hundred victims of Epstein and Maxwell descended on Washington D.C. to support greater transparency from the Trump administration.

The Epstein issue also came up repeatedly during White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s daily press briefing today. Most significantly, the senior New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman pressed Ms Leavitt to explain which element of the story, about Mr Trump’s alleged birthday message to Epstein, was “fake” or “a hoax”.

Ms Haberman was alluding to Ms Leavitt and Mr Trump’s previous statements, which have dismissed the entire story as a hoax.

“I want to follow up on something you said. You said the Epstein documents are a hoax that Democrats are perpetrating against the President. You have said he didn’t sign the cheque, that he didn’t sign the birthday card that he allegedly signed. So what is the theory, since these documents came from the Epstein estate? Who is, I guess in your view, faking these documents?” Ms Haberman asked.

“I did not say the documents were a hoax. I said the entire narrative surrounding Jeffrey Epstein right now, that is absorbing many of the liberal cable channels on television, is a hoax that is being perpetuated by opportunistic Democrats like Ro Khanna and the others whom you say on that press conference outside of Capitol Hill, who are trying to push this against the President of the United States,” said Ms Leavitt.

Mr Khanna has been working across the political aisle with a Republican colleague, Thomas Massie, to get more Epstein-related files released by the Trump administration.

The two men recently took part in a press conference where about a dozen victims of Epstein and Maxwell spoke in support of their proposed legislation to require more transparency.

Ms Haberman continued to press.

“Is the hoax – I’m just trying to understand what’s fake. What’s fake is not the documents, then?” she asked.

“The hoax is the Democrats pretending to care about victims of crime when they do not care about the victims of crime. When they have done nothing to solve crime. When they’ve done nothing to lock up child pedophile and child rapists across the country,” said Ms Leavitt.

“They are now using victims as political props, to try and – again, to smear the President of the United States and drag on this bad story about him. It’s a distraction.

“The Democrats view this story as nothing more than an attempt to distract from the accomplishments and achievements of this administration. And that is what we mean when we call it a hoax.”

That answer did nothing to deter Ms Haberman.

“If you say he didn’t sign the birthday card, he didn’t do this … those were in the documents from (Epstein’s) estate. So what is the working theory as to why he’s in them?” she asked.

Brief explanation: Mr Trump says the birthday note to Epstein, attributed to him, isn’t real. But it comes from documents that have been in the possession of Epstein’s estate.

So is the suggestion here that someone, back in 2003, long before Mr Trump entered politics, thought to plant a fake birthday message from him, with the aim of making him look bad two decades down the track during his at-that-point entirely unforeseen political career?

“The President has one of the most famous signatures in the world, and he has for many, many years,” said Ms Leavitt.

“You know that Maggie. You’ve covered him for a long time, long before he assumed this office, when he was a businessman.

“The President did not write that letter. He did not sign those documents. He maintains that position, and that position will be argued in court by his lawyers.”

We await further developments.